Please share how and where you did your research in arriving at a non-vax position.

I will go first….. (if you do not want to read the wall-o-text, scroll down to the bullets)

I started many moons ago (1997) with a nurse. I asked the nurse what the justification was for a second measles shot (which was brand new idea at the time). She said the 1st shot only "caught" about 95-98% of the public. I asked what the prevalence of measles was. She did not know. I asked the doctor at the next well baby visit - he did not know, but did tell me the measles vaccine was safer than measles (thanks, but that is not what I asked….) I then called the Canadian Pediatric Society who also could not help me. That sort of did it - their inability to answer questions did not reassure me that vaccines were necessary.

I have never had an encounter with a doctor where they could answer my question about prevalence and I ask all.the.time. I have given them numerous chances to intelligently make their case - it has not happened.

As for myself - my biggest reference has been the CDC pink book. I consult it more than anything else. I have a few issues with it, but it is still my biggest resource.

I will read WHO ocasionally, but their scope is more international than I require.

I read studies I find on Pubmed. Some studies are better than others. I prefer the full study to the abstract, if possible.

I do read non-vax sites (NVIC, SmartVax, SaneVax, SafeMinds) but I verify the information on them by clicking the links. I read other (non CDC) pro-vax websites as well - and I verify anything interesting by clicking on links.

I read blogs and articles. I read these for fun. They are not research, although they occasionally have links in them that are useful.

So, Coles note version:

-doctors

-nurses

-Canadian Pediatric Society

-CDC Pink Book

-PHAC

-Who (when relevant)

-Pubmed

-non-vax and pro-vax sites for link

-blogs and articles for links

There is a battle of two wolves inside us. One is good and the other is evil. The wolf that wins is the one you feed.

Book and herb loving mama to 1 preteen and 2 teens (when did that happen?). We travel, go to school, homeschool, live rurally, eat our veggies, spend too much time...

Agreed - but here's the thing. This subject and question has been posted numerous times over the years on the main discussion boards. Non-vaxers have often and frequently shared where they get their research and how they came about to the choice to not vaccinate. IT DOESN"T MATTER. The insinuation then becomes not that you haven't done research in the right places, but that you are too stupid to analyze a study or understand the scientific literature because how could a thoughtful, intelligent person who is diligent and capable, read the same study I did and come to an entirely different conclusion??? - impossible!

I tire very quickly of the holier than thou condescending arrogant tone that permeates those types of threads on the main boards. So I'm glad you posted the question here where that won't happen!

As for me Its a similar story except my journey started before I had kids. I knew a child who died of SIDS. The mother blames the DTaP. I was extremely provax, pro conventional medicine at the time. I started researching mainly to prove her wrong. Obviously being provax I read all the mainsteam stuff, but I also wanted to understand why she thought what she thought, so I dug deeper. Medical literature, antivax sites, CDC, pinkbook everything you mentioned above Kathy and I opened a can of worms I wasn't ready for and that along with some other issues I was dealing with medically challenged my entire belief in conventional medicine. That was 10 years ago.

If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." Thomas Jefferson.

Well my research started 8 yrs ago when I got my dogs. I had just graduated from a pre-vet program where it was hammered into us that vaccines, antibiotics and commercially prepared, vet-approved foods where the only way to raise a healthy animal of any species. I found a good breeder and followed what I thought was the right path to health - and got hit with a whammy on the first vet visit. The breeder had already given the pups two 5-way combo shots from a series of three, leaving me to believe they only needed one last combo. The vet said he was starting over, really without any explanation why, and as I asked for answers he skirted around it and administered the vaccines anyways. Having never read about alternatives to vaxxing or the ability to decline them, this still felt very wrong to me, and as I watched my healthy pups get sicker and sicker I knew there had to be a better way. So I went online to the vaccines websites and read about them via the manufacturers. It wasn't easy to find information so I admittedly googled many things and went to many non-proven sites to read different opinions and that set the ball in motion for me. After taking one pup into the emergency vet when he stopped breathing I did find a newer graduate who didn't treat me like I was ignorant and she was very helpful in explaining why they did things and what my options where - and even that I could use alternative therapies to supplement the traditional. That was a huge revelation that lead me down a path of supplements and eventually raw feeding. It took 5 years before I considered my dogs healthy. At that point in my life I was ready to think about having kids and naturally if I was leery about vaxxing my animals I was certainly going to research for my future kids. So I would find various medical journals or CDC studies and articles and try to make sense of the numbers.

Sadly it wasn't until after I had my daughter and she had vax reactions that I was able to find medical providers who were open with me to discuss not vaxxing. Her pediatrician seemed incredibly open for discussions pre-baby when we met with her, but it unfortuntely didn't go beyond that initial meeting. I still read through every link I can find that people post on here for various topics in case I've missed something or I'll bookmark it for later in case I need it. I wish it was easier to find people within the medical field who were open for discussion but sadly it hasn't been the case for me. About 90% of our friends are in some sort of medical field and I have no doubt they cringe when they see me coming bc I'm the crazy hippy who 'shuns all that they know to be true'! Most take great pleasure in attempting to discredit me in some way shape or form and it has lead to a severe decrease in my social outings with them. I offer up sources and links, but like Marnica said, they always find ways to make a joke of it or to read the information differently and it definitely gets old. I have no problem if my friends want to vax their kids, yet they have problems with how I raise mine and I get tired of defending myself - I really shouldn't have to!

So to sum it up, I started with dog vaccine websites, vet's (It took 7 years to find a local hollistic vet!), then a few misinformed pediatricians, CDC site, med journals online, and MDC peeps who post fabulous links and do alot of legwork for me really does save a lot of time!

I'm not an organized person. I don't keep track of source documents or collect links to pages or studies I've read... I would have been doing that all along if the object of my research were to amass a body of information with which to persuade others. I can understand wanting to do just that if you're vax skeptical and want to alert others to the dangers you see being snuck under the radar to the clueless masses. What creeps me out is pro vaxxers admitting to having a very systematic formula for organizing this research- what for? If you're wholeheartedly accepting the party line, Uncle Sam and Big Pharma are saying it all loud and clear, why do you need to become a vocal advocate and spend tons of your own time spouting big gov'ment's message? Unless... well, ahem.

So I started looking into vaccines several years ago when I began having some issues that I believed to be associated with mercury toxicity. Not from vaccines, but from a mouthful of amalgam fillings that I've had since childhood. The mercury hypothesis connected a lot of dots for me, and helped to explain things I've been going through for most of my life. I got on a detox program and it helped some, but I still haven't had the fillings removed- long story, and I digress. My older DD has also suffered from a similar set of behavioral anomalies that plagued me during my school years and were quite troublesome for both of us. But if I felt my issues were connected to mercury fillings, I couldn't explain hers in the same way. I started looking into mercury transmission from mother to baby during gestation and breastfeeding, and stumbled upon the thimerosal content in vaccines. My older kids were both born in the late 90s and fully vaxxed, so they received well over the federal safety limit for mercury, just through their vaccinations. A look at DD's baby book and hospital/medical records confirmed that significant medical events, including but not limited to the emergence of asthma and severe attacks, a period of regression and loss of speech during toddlerhood, and an extended period of extreme fatigue and malaise during her pre-teen years, occurred closely following vaccinations.

I wasn't convinced that vaccines were the culprit, but it the temporal associations plus the toxic nature of the contents of these drugs were concerning, so I dug deeper. I'm not detailing my process because, as I said, I haven't kept records and this has been an obsession of mine for years now. I became even more keenly interested when I was pg with DS, as I now needed to make these decisions for a new person- it isn't just a matter of investigating potential past harms. It has not been the available research, but rather the gaps and the absence of answers to the questions I have, that I find suspicious. The official CDC response to concerned parents, on all fronts, is insulting to our intelligence, and the studies that touch on the safety concerns I have are blighted with confounds and industry bias. The fact that our government, rather than responding with total transparency, open books and raw data for anyone to analyze, instead smacks down questioners by siding blatantly with mega industry and funding disinformation, is disquieting to say the least.

Something in the water ain't clean. It's as clear as day. Until we get real answers and good longitudinal studies, and until the big wigs own up to the mistakes they've made in the childhood vaccine program, I remain very skeptical. I may still choose to do a few vaccines, but this is a decision that weighs heavy on me in absence of information I can trust.

Back in 2004 when I was pg with my DD, the topic of whether we would vaccinate came up alot . . . my DH's niece had an adverse reaction to vaccines as an infant, and her parents stopped vaccinating . . . this always remained in the back of DH's mind, and so when we got pregnant, it obviously came up. I read some books, I think one of them was the famous A Shot In The Dark . . . and remember thinking, there's no way I'm putting vaccines into my baby! When DD was about a year old, it was all confirmed for us, WHY we don't vaccinate; DH started a new job, and they required he had a Hepatitis vax . . after one dose, he broke out in hives all over his body, and a rash under his arms so bad that he couldn't put his arms all the way to his sides for weeks.

My second DD, when she was about 8 months old, was mistakenly given eggs . . . I made a dish with eggs, and forgot about the egg part . . she gobbled it down, and within minutes, was head to toe hives, and her lips started turning blue. We rushed her to emergency, where they stabilized her breathing. I had to carry an epi pen with me until she tested fine for eggs at age 3. Can you IMAGINE what could've happened if I had vaccinated her? Not knowing she was so sensitive to eggs . . . I can't even consider the consequences.

I still like to do lots of research. I love this board because not only is everyone like-minded, but I love all the links that are posted . .. I read all of them!